Prudence and the Reasons of Rational Persons

Abstract

I. Prudence and the Desire Theory of ReasonsOnce I know my situation, the acts open to me, the possible outcomes of doing them, and the odds of each outcome's obtaining should I do them, what fixes which actions are rational for me?Hume says desires, things person-relative in being able to vary over persons, time-relative in being able to vary in a person over time.My simply having a desire makes it rational to do what I think would cause its end. 1 This is the desire theory of the reasons of rational agents.But Thomas Nagel says the determinants of rational acts are impersonal and timeless reasons. 2 These constitute a standard of goodness in states of affairs, one neither person-nor time-relative, though it may justify a person in an act at a time if her doing it could cause a good state.An act is rational only if it aims to cause the good.One's having a desire can affect which acts are rational only indirectly, by affecting which states would be good.Nagel thinks all action is induced by desire.Only it does not suffice for an act to be rational that one desires to do it.The desire must be 'motivated', a desire to do what one is justified in doing.3 So the dispute is this: what makes a desire motivated?Hume says the mere having of a desire.For Nagel, timeless reasons fix which desires are motivated.I here extend decision theory and the rational kinematics of values to argue that Hume's view does not have certain absurd consequences Nagel alleges, and that much in Nagel must yield to Hume.In particular, I argue that reasons can't be necessarily timeless.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 20 citations exist upstream.